It always amazes me when people say, upon hearing that I work with computers and technology: “oh, that must be so complicated!”
I can’t help wondering, when I think about how complicated we humans are, and how complex the relationships between us, just what these people are talking about.
A computer is, in fact, eminently learnable. If you put in the time to study a computer language, technology or interface protocol, you will indeed master the instrument. No matter how complex it might seem, technology is predictable — if you poke it in a particular way, it will respond the same thing every time.
People, in contrast, are utterly unpredictable, capable of immense generosity and equally immense venality, often in the space of a single breath. Just when you think you know what’s going on, human minds will charge off in some completely unexpected direction. It is both our tragedy and our glory.
To paraphrase a grand old quote: Technology is easy. People are hard.
Yep.
`The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all.’ (K. Goedel) How it relates to the post? Well, first and foremost it occurs as a Reply (…). However, to communicate with computers is not nearly as complicated as with any living thing `if you poke it in a particular way, it will respond the same thing every time.’. Hence, Technology is [should] be easy, seeing that we manage somehow to interact with cats, dogs, men.